千萬別用！最令人痛恨的十大商務術語(複製)

Oh, English, the beautiful bastard of European language, the tongue of kings, merchants, scientists and poets. Ever-flexible and always-developing, English is constantly being expanded: usually by its most-common users. Shakespeare invented almost 2,000 words, from “arouse” to “zany.”

噢，英文，歐洲語言中美麗的混蛋，國王、商人、科學家、詩人的語言。靈活多變、不斷髮展。英語一直在擴充：通常是最經常使用這門語言的人乾的好事兒。莎士比亞創造了大約2000個單詞，從“引起”到“滑稽的”。

Before that, Chaucer added some of English’s most common expressions – “absent,” “accident,” “box,” and so on. (Equally important, he also gave us “veal,” “vulgar,” and “laxative.”) And, now, in our century, Gerald (that guy who sits across from you in the office and manages Accounts Payable) gives us treasure after treasure, from “incentivize” to “granularity” to “disintermediate.”

在他之前，喬叟創造了英文中最普遍的表達——“事故”，“盒子”等等。（同樣值得一提的是，“小牛肉”、“粗俗的”和“通便藥”也是他發明的。）在我們現在這個時代，傑拉德（在辦公室坐你對面處理應付賬款的那位老兄）給了我們一堆又一堆單詞，從“刺激”到“高數據粒度”再到“作非居間化投資”。

“Special Purpose” English has always had a place in society: doctors and nurses need a set of words to describe medicine, illnesses, and surgical tools; pilots need an entirely unique vocabulary to talk about the atmosphere, airplane engineering, and safety issues, and… other professionals need language for stuff that, let’s be honest, we don’t really care that much about. But Business English has always tied with Political English for the most pretentious cliches and most meaningless double-talk.

“特殊目的”英語在社會中總佔有一席之地。醫生和護士需要大量詞彙來描述藥物、疾病、手術工具；飛行員需要獨一無二的詞彙來談論大氣，飛機制造和安全問題，以及其他職業需要的語言。但坦白的說，我們並不關心那些詞彙。但是商務英語總是和政治英語聯繫起來產生最自命不凡的陳詞濫調和最無意義的空話。

It’s gotten so bad, in fact, that many business journals are even starting to complain about it. Forbes Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, even the BBC have all recently published their own indexes of most-hated business jargon. Naturally, Voxy’s here to help with some of our own… and remember, no matter what your manager “thinks” is okay, DON’T let these come out of your mouth!

這種情況愈加惡化，以至於已經有雜誌開始抱怨了》《福布斯》、《華爾街日報》甚至BBC最近都發布了他們各自的最反感商務術語指數。所以，Voxy網站也挑選了一些令人反感的商務術語，記住，無論你的老闆是否認爲這些詞沒問題，不要從嘴巴里冒出這些詞！

1) “Action item” – because the words “job,” “task,” or “duty” are just way too long and complex, right?

1）“指定任務”——難道是因爲“工作”、“任務”、“職責”這幾個詞又長又複雜才創造了這個詞？

2) “Advise” – Not a bad word, just way overused. Here’s a hint: if you’re not giving an opinion about someone else’s decision, you’re not “advising.” Are you “saying,” “telling,” “informing,” “helping,” “notifying,” “specifying,” and so on? Maybe, sure. But what you’re not doing is “advising.”

2）“建議”——不是個糟糕的詞，只是太頻繁使用了。給個提示：如果你不是在針對他人的決定發表自己的看法，你就不是在“建議”。你是不是隻是在“說”、“告訴”、“通知”、“幫助”、“通報”、“詳述”等等呢？

3) “Bandwidth” – Again, fine in one context, godawful in all others. Are we talking about data transfer speeds? Great! Are we talking about ability, capacity, capability, time, money, or people? …not so good.

3）“帶寬”——同樣也是在一定情境下沒問題，但其他情況就糟透了。我們是在說數據傳送的速度嗎？那麼用這個詞很好。如果是在說能力、才能、時間、錢、或人呢？……這個詞可不怎麼樣。

4) “Bottleneck” – One more of this breed, with a far simpler rule: if it’s not traffic, don’t say bottleneck. If it’s not a noun, don’t say bottleneck. If it’s a verb that means to “slow,” “hinder,” “impede,” or “obstruct,” then DON’T. SAY. BOTTLENECK.

4）“瓶頸”——又是這一類的詞，用法更簡單：如果不是談論交通，不要用這個詞。如果不是名詞，不要用這個詞。如果是動詞，且表示“減緩”、“阻礙”、“阻塞”，那麼直接使用這些詞就好了，不要用“瓶頸”。

5) “Empower” – Nelson Mandela empowers. Your iPhone does not. “Enhance” or “enable”? Sure.

5）“使……掌握自主權”——尼爾森·曼德拉讓人們擁有自主權，你的蘋果手機可不能。你想說的是“提高”或者“使能夠”吧！

6) “Impact” – Fortunately, this one at least has an actual reason for its recent popularity. Unfortunately, that reason is “too many executives can’t be bothered to learn the difference between ‘affect’ and ‘effect,’ and neither could their second-grade English teachers.”

6）“衝擊”——幸運的是這個詞如此流行是有正當原因的。不幸的是這個原因就是太多管理人員不願意學習一下“affect”和“effect”的區別，他們的2年級英語老師也一樣。

7) “Leverage” – Again, let’s all be thankful someone found a shorter, more convenient way to say the word “use.”

7）“充分利用”——再次，我們謝謝某人發現了一個更短、更方便的詞——“使用”。

8) “Preplan” – What’s the opposite? “Postplan”? “Duringplan”? By its nature, planning is “pre” – if it’s not happening before, it’s not a plan: it’s a reaction.

8）“預計劃”——反義詞是什麼呢？“後計劃”？“中計劃”？計劃本身就有提前的意思——如果計劃不是預先發生的話，就不叫計劃了，叫反應。

9) “Robust” – Yet another normal, innocent word turned into a monster by corporate “repurposing.” This used to just mean “hearty,” “rugged,” or “vigorous” – not exactly words you’d think to apply to, say, a database software suite, right? And yet these days, 99% of the time this word is used to talk about programs that magically don’t crash every time you open them. There are even rumors that it’s spawned the terms “robustify,” “robusticity,” and even “robustification.” Pray they’re not true.

9)”穩健的”——又是一個正常、無辜的詞因爲改變用途變成了陳詞濫調。這個詞只表示“熱情友好”或“粗獷”或“強有力的”——而不是像你所想的那樣用來形容數據庫套裝軟件。然而現金，99%的情況下，這個單詞被用來形容軟件不會每次打開時都崩潰。甚至還有謠言說這個詞衍生出了動詞“使……強健”和名詞“穩健”及“穩健化”。

10) “Solution” – Perhaps the biggest victim of them all, this word used to mean… SOMETHING. Now? It doesn’t.

10）“解決方案”——這個詞可能是最大的受害者了，這個詞過去曾用來表示“某事”，現在早就不用了。